I question things which people take for granted. I would have been that kid who said the emperor was naked. In real life that kid would probably have been lynched, but I'll take my chances...
I believe truth inherently valuable, no matter how well intentioned the ideology it dispels may be.
I also write about random interesting things from my personal life.

22 December 2008

The term "I told you so" comes to mind

Dec 22, 2008

The term "I
told you so" comes to mind

I would like to point out that in January of this
year, I wrote about houses not being a sound financial investment.

Popularly "sub-prime" is thought of as referring to lending to people
with poor credit history. In fact, 61% of sub-prime borrowers had a
credit rating high enough for a traditional loan. The middle class tend
to be at least as guilty of living beyond their means as the working
class. 21% of those making over 100k a year say they live paycheck to
paycheck.
At the time I wrote the blog an unprecedented number of people were
deliberately buying houses grossly out of their means using interest only loans
(which would never be paid off, by design) on the assumption (by both
the consumer and the bank) that the housing market would continue to climb at
the rate it was forever.
That climb, however, was driven mainly by that very speculation, valuable only
due to popularity.
This summer, 6 months later, so many people were defaulting on their loans that
it affected the entire credit industry, and by extension, the entire economy.

I have an associates degree in economics. How is it that I was able to
see this, yet no one in the dozens of banks and credit institutions, nor the
rest of the financial sector was? Or perhaps were they just confident
that friends in the white house would help out with tax payer money?